Cheney: “In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground”

posted at 2:24 pm on May 21, 2009 by Allahpundit

Actually, there is a middle ground; the point of the torture memos was finding it. That’s the only note that’s a tiny bit off here, though. Read the full transcript at the Standard, as there’s so much to enjoy about this speech that everyone’s bound to have a different favorite moment. For Frum, it was Cheney calling Obama out for covering up information about whether the interrogations worked. For me, it’s the second half of the clip you’re about to see. For others, it’ll be his mockery of the media intoning sanctimoniously about jihadists “abducted” from the battlefield by U.S. troops or his reminder that terrorists don’t need pretexts like Gitmo or waterboarding to attack the U.S. — a timely point given the arrest last night of those NYC plotters outraged by the war in Afghanistan.

It won’t surprise you to know that his approval rating, while still negative, has started to rise ever since he started his media tour. It’s a shame Bush didn’t use him as more of a mouthpiece on this subject over the last few years of his administration: Dour though his Darth Cheney persona may be, he projects gravitas and speaks with understated eloquence. He’s bound to persuade at least a few fencesitters.

Update: In hindsight, wasn’t it awfully stupid of The One to rush out a national security speech to try to preempt Cheney? If he’d kept quiet, this still would have been a hit on righty blogs and Fox News but nowhere else. By jumping in, he created the sensational “terror duel” storyline that’s forcing the media to magnify this. At the very least, he should have waited a week or so and then given his speech as a rebuttal to Cheney’s. For someone so message-savvy, he crapped the bed this time.

He made Bambi look like a candy ass double-speaking miscreant. Dick got a gold medal while Barry was in the Special Olympics. Barry is a miserable failure and has gotten himself in a quagmire without an exit strategy. The Obama doctrine is to Lie and if that doesn’t work then Lie some more.

Why is Cheney the only one out there confronting Obambi directly on Obambi’s sorry excuse for a foreign policy?

Cheney’s crusade to defend the policies that have kept us safe for the past 7-8 years has obviously had an impact: Cheney’s approval numbers are up sharply, Obambi is squirming defensively, and Athensboy is squealing like a caught pig. There is now a golden opportunity for our elected GOP “leaders” to draw a line in the sand and to directly confront The Chosen One. Yet I don’t see anyone else on the GOP side rushing in to join forces with Cheney. WAKE UP, GOP!! Nothing major here, just the future of our country as we know it, that’s all. To hell with reelection concerns – get out there and defend that which you know is right!

Obama was definitely off his game. He seemed rattled, even incredulous at the liquid BS that was oozing from his own teleprompter. Somebody get a mop. Dick Cheney sent Barkey to his room without dinner after giving him a wedgie for all the world to see.

VP Cheney’s speech was excellent on so many levels. His logic and completeness in explicating the rationale for the Bush administration’s policies re tackling the terrorist threat and the resultant protection from another devastating attack put the emptiness of Obama’s foolish rhetoric to shame and expose him as an opportunistic politician.

Every paragraph of Cheney’s speech is a jewel.

I especially liked that Cheney held up the silliness of O’s semantics changes away from “war on terror” and “enemy combatants” to subtle ridicule by clarifying that word changes do not diminish the danger that dedicated enemies intend towards our nation.

Cheney also very publicly threw down the gauntlet regarding the redactions in the memos and Blair’s remarks that O’s team released and the fact that the former were released against the advice of four former national security trustees. Cheney needs to hammer home his point that Obama is telling only a half truth is he does not release the classified information that Cheney has requested.

It is Obama who insists on looking back to his own fantasy verion of the past events. He neither sees them realistically nor as a means of learning how to deal with the future.

I truly miss Dick Cheney. Our country is in real jeopardy on several levels under President Obama.

I can’t even imagine the depth of terror that, TOTUS and BO, just the two of them, had to feel going into battle against Cheney today. Michelle Obama probably had to throw TOTUS under the bus and bring out, a new iteration, TOTUS.2 for tomorrow. Maybe Biden will inherit TOTUS.1

The Obama administration looks increasingly trapped by their own closed circle dialectic with the Bush administration.

Perpetually running against Bush and framing policy positions as they relate to the previous administration may make sense on the campaign trail but it yields a diminishing return over time. This is increasingly the case since Cheney has decided to start returning fire and appears to be hitting his targets successfully. In this latest volley, Cheney put down markers which can only hurt Obama’s administration going forward.

To his own detriment, Obama is forcing a continuous reevaluation loop of the Bush administration.

Does Obama reign in the anti Bush meme or does he up the ante by making increasingly large wagers of his political capital in a game with diminishing potential pay outs?

This man is the only adult in modern US politics. He has been derided by all sides, but he is the most capable leader in the US today. It is unfortunate that he has a heart condition…he could LEAD the Repubs out of the wilderness. THANK YOU Mr. Cheney. Going where so called Repub leaders don’t have the guts to go!

The reason, frankly, that Cheney outtalked Obama is that Obama’s circular messages are wearing thin with people. I am becoming convinced that Cheney is being heard even more than expected because he talks straightforwardly. People are missing that style.

Obama says, “No commission, look forward, while bringing up Bush repeatedly.” That type of circular thinking impressed a great many people in the campaign that he was “intelligent” and “adult-like.” No, that’s just the academic-speak, where you never really define your own position well.

He aroused his base, yet again, in demanding prosecution. He repeatedly says, no prosecution, but he does so in a way that nobody believes him.

The issue of GITMO makes virtually no sense to reasonable people. The pictures of sadism were shocking and awful. OK, that’s been settled. Now, people simply can’t really grasp why we’re closing GITMO if the problems have been resolved. We’re back to military tribunes. OK. So why are we bringing these prisoners to the US?

Obama’s positions on these issues have painted him into a corner. McCain and Clinton only managed to counter his positions in the election by calling them naive. Cheney finally has shown people WHY it is naive.

I know trying to keep the Great Unwashed Masses ignorant is SOP for conservatives, but you shouldn’t be so blatant about it. Bad form, old chap.

Constantine on May 21, 2009 at 8:37 PM

Actually, the G.U.M. do a pretty good job of keeping themselves ignorant, as you just demonstrated. Of course the mass media and the unshakable reverse-Robin Hood mentality of the Democrat party makes a bad situation worse, but they just water the seed.

This is the Cheney I proudly voted for twice. I wish someone of his caliber was in the WH. Sigh.

NebCon on May 21, 2009 at 2:29 PM

Same here!

I think one of the great failures of the Bush Presidency was the failure to respond to so much of the unfair criticisms leveled at him from the left.

As much as I detest O’zero, the Kenyan does go out of his way to defend himself and his abominable socialist agenda. This doesn’t change the minds of those firmly on the left or right, but it does influence those in the middle, who actually sway election outcomes.

The lack of a convincing argument from the Bush Admin about the Democrats’ long-term central role in this country’s dramatic economic collapse (Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie/Freddie, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, etc) now has us marching to the drumbeat of socialism.

Maybe not quite that simple, but certainly part of the cause and effect. And the result? We now have the foxes guarding the henhouse.

Per the recommendation of a poster here (I think) I read “The Dark Side” and have to admit I found it troubling. On the one hand the author clearly had a bias, and her notion that lawyers are essential in the making of war is also a bit absurd. War is frought with perils of all types, and humans under great stress act in unforeseen ways.

That being said, saying something is not torture just because you have a lawyer who says so is bizarre.

If the book is truthful, then a handful of prisoners died as a result of our ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, and that in and of itself would be torture.

Though football season is months away, my analogy would be that neither side moved the chains. Maybe a yard or two here or there, but no big movement. Would you presume that this is Cheney’s year as he is going to need to take a lower profile next year in order to not be kicking up dust during an election year? Many politicians that don’t want to touch this topic can benefit from the proxy of the Cheneys, but that is going to get complicated by this time next year.

The president noted that America’s global reputation has been devastated by U.S. treatment of terror suspects, but that “our treatment of a million fetuses each year earns us nothing but admiration, and requests for clinic-funding from those who aspire to be like us.”

Sources acknowledged continuing White House debate about whether a terrorist who escapes from Gitmo alive can still be treated as a fetus.

V.P. Cheney is showing the way. As he makes the case for National Security and his approval rises in the polls (unfortunately the Holy Grail of D.C.), then maybe finally the GOP will realize it is okay to man up. Right now they are mostly trying to out (What is the word Politico is upset about now?) feline each other.